gift returns

Marjorie received a Christmas gift from her sister from Sports Authority, and needs to take it back. No big deal: that’s why her sister included a gift receipt. The problem is that the item’s price has dropped, likely because it’s on clearance, and they want to give Marjorie $77 when her sister paid $101. That’s funny, because that’s against the chain’s stated holiday season return policy…on the web site. In retail stores, who knows?

Retailers are always tweaking their return policies, weighing the delicate balance between protecting their bottom lines and treating customers with fairness. No two return policies ever seem to be the same, and even if they are, changes come along soon enough to differentiate them once again.

Roger is stuck with some clothes that relatives bought him for Christmas that don’t fit. Did these relatives cut the tags off? Buy him shirts from an obscure store with only a few locations? No. The shirts come from Kmart, which has so much trouble remembering its own recent inventory that they’ve deleted all trace of this recent merchandise from their systems and can’t take the shirts back.